Palliative care is mostly provided by medical specialists with a background in anaesthesiology, oncology or internal medicine. Nurses, psychologists, social workers and other health professionals constitute a smaller percentage. As palliative care has not been fully recognized by health care organizations, most palliative care professionals are not paid for their work in palliative care, but they do receive reimbursement for the work they do in other specializations.

Dr Restrepo gives some insight into the Colombian palliative care workforce capacity:

“At different hospitals, the possibility exists that the physician would care for the patient according to his or her medical background. Specialist palliative care is provided by specialist doctors at the National Institute which is the central model, with high complexity Each [health professional] has her or his medical specialty at the Institute. For instance, there is an anaesthesiologist, therapists, oncologists, family physician, clinician. We all have a basic specialization, but also we have a specialization [in palliative care]. Most palliative care, in this country at least, has emerged around the cancer patient. But we have had to make our care also available to AIDS and other chronically ill patients who have not had a definitive cure”¹⁹.

Although it has changed slightly during the twelve years of its lifespan, Dr Rodriguez describes how his palliative care team is made up:

“We have got a general physician, a psychologist, a volunteer lady. And we have the collaboration of a neurology physician and of a physician specialized in physical therapy and rehabilitation We also have two auxiliary nurses”²⁰.